2 New Monkeypox Cases Confirmed in Luxembourg, 8 in Total

On Saturday 16 July 2022, the Health Directorate announced that up to and including Saturday 16 July 2022, eight cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in Luxembourg.

As of Saturday, in 35 countries and areas in the European region, a total of 8,238 cases of monkeypox have been reported to the health authorities at the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), including 6,899 laboratory confirmed cases (https://monkeypoxreport.ecdc.europa.eu/).

In Europe, the first known case had a symptom onset date of 3 April 2022. The majority of cases were detected in people aged between 31 and 40 (2,890 cases out of total 6,892 cases - 42%) and were male (6,782 cases out of total 6,818 cases - 99.5%). Of the cases with known HIV status, 43% (561 out of 1,313) were HIV positive. The majority of cases presented with rash (3,505 out of 3,683 - 95.2%) and systemic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, sore throat or headache (2,346 out of 3,683 - 64%) .

183 cases were hospitalised (10.2%), of which 98 required clinical care. Three cases were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). No fatalility due to monkeypox infection is reported yet. 23 Cases have been reported as healthcare workers, but further investigations are ongoing to determine if the infection was due to occupational exposure.

In Luxembourg, two new monkeypox cases were confirmed in the week before, taking the total of confirmed cases to eight. No cases have been hospitalised so far.

The epidemiological and clinical characteristics of these cases are very similar to the cases reported at European level. None of the confirmed cases required hospitalisation. The six confirmed cases have no epidemiological link between themselves and were all exposed to the monkeypox virus abroad.

The health directorate has advised people to protect themselves against the virus and to avoid risky situations in order to limit the spread of the virus. Protective measures include washing hands regularly with soap, avoiding sharing bed linen and towels with infected people or those who have been in contact with infected people, and use of protection in case of sexual contact.